Photo: Government Influence and Journalism panel at the Digital Media Round Table in Miami.. Credit: Paige Levin.

Media professionals from across the country debated big issues on the future of journalism last week in a small room at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University in Miami Beach.

The Digital Future Forum’s Mobile Journalism Roundtable, sponsored by Univision and Knight Foundation, covered everything from censorship, to ethics, digital media and hacking in just five hours. Digital Future Forum is a group that wants to improve the digital future of media, so each of the panels was a fast-moving, open discussion.

“We wanted to make something small but powerful,” Digital Future Forum co-founder Tim Pool said. “A ton of very powerful people showed up, and I was honored and flabbergasted that all of these amazing people wanted to come and hear what all of us had to say.”

The roundtable, hosted by journalist Bob Berkowitz, included representatives from the Associated Press, CNN, Florida International University, Fusion, the Miami Herald and Univision.   

It featured four panels: Mobile Production and Curation, Government Influence and Journalism, Content Flows in 2015: Mobile Production to Mobile Consumption, and Emerging Business Models and Journalism. Audience members weren’t the only ones asking questions. Panelists posed questions to audience members about how their organizations were handling changes.

 The roundtable is “a very new initiative that has really been about bringing together the smartest people we can find and talking about issues in digital communication today in a comfortable environment,” Digital Future Forum co-founder Isaac Phillips said.

Fusion CEO and President of News and Digital for Univision Isaac Lee saw potential in the forum and brought it to Miami, Pool said.

“He wanted to continue the conversation and get more people involved,” Pool said. “The idea was always to keep it small, but I think we’re getting more and more pressure to make this an actual big event.”

Lee wanted to showcase Latino journalists, so one panel focused on issues those journalists have faced in countries where the government is not journalism-friendly.

“It’s a topic we haven’t done before,” Phillips said. “But we’re excited to do it here in Miami.”

Participant Erika Mayor, of Grupomayor Consulting, said she attended the discussion because as a public relations specialist, she must keep up with media trends.

“ “There are so many different voices, and everyone is very honest, so it’s a great way to learn what’s coming next,” Mayor said.  

The conversation among just 46 attendees ended with drinks and dinner prepared by an underground New York sushi club.

“We found that food is one of the most important things in really developing relationships, so we always try to do a really nice dinner and nice drinks,” Phillips said.

The forum still has a long way to go, he said. Digital Future Forum would like to start producing reports based on the conversations at these events, he added. Those conversations, questions and conclusions set the agenda for events in the future.

People are already asking for more, Pool said.

“I think the challenge will be making it bigger so more people can be involved, but maintaining this kind of intimate feeling,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”  

Paige Levin is a journalism intern for Knight Foundation. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @PaigeLevin.